147

This paper outlines a sample of recent computational approaches aimed at aiding traditional interpretive work in literary criticism. Taking the corpus of Senecan tragedies as a case study, the paper demonstrates the power of computation both to identify standard stylistic features far more rapidly than manual methods and to highlight features too small and numerous for human readers to register with any comprehensiveness.

The family dramas passed down via the corpus of the Attic orators give the modern reader a fascinating insight into the normative values of fifth and fourth century Athens and its environs. Orators would use these cultural expectations to convince the juries of the reliability and propriety of their clients: a jury would be more inclined to vote in favor of a defendant or prosecutor who acted within the bounds of social acceptability towards his family members, friends, and fellow citizens.

This paper questions whether Athens’ defeat by its former allies in 355 B.C.E. was the watershed moment it is generally regarded to be – one that caused a sudden and significant change in the city’s financial and foreign policies. I present alternative interpretations of the evidence in order to recast our understanding of mid-fourth century Athenian political discourse.

In discussing Livy’s use of his most important Greek source, Polybius, P.G. Walsh famously wrote that “a clear and somewhat damning picture emerges of a mind rapidly and mechanically transposing the Greek, and coming to full consciousness only when grappling with the more congenial problems of literary presentation,” (Walsh 144). This has, until recently, been the received wisdom regarding the merits of this writer whose methods and goals differ greatly from those of modern practitioners of historiography.

Ovid’s Heroides opens with a letter by Penelope, whose Homeric predecessor is perhaps the most famous weaver in Greek literature, and whose weaving trick is, in Homer, a clear sign that she possesses metis to match her husband’s (Winkler 1990; Felson-Rubin 1994; Clayton 2004; Bergren 2008). In the Heroides, however, Penelope barely references the weaving at all; she makes only two oblique references to it (Heroides 1.9-10 and 77-78).

The notion of a firm history/myth polarity is in large part a modern construction, since to the Greeks, the body of their traditional tales was their past, and one that formed a powerful and ever-relevant continuum with the present.

To call a work a “Classic” suggests a corollary, “success” – indeed, success so unmitigated, so spectacular, that any text which warrants inclusion in the Classical canon is guaranteed a certain timelessness, and is from that point forward accorded automatic merit.  But what happens if a text “fails?”  Could any text that fails – aesthetically or otherwise – ever be considered Classic?  Is the notion of “failure” utterly foreign to what it means to be “Classical?”

Perses, among the very first hellenistic epigrammatists, is easily overlooked. Eclipsed by later generations of poets, he has spurred interest over only one issue: were his epigrams, early as they are, intended for the stone or the scroll? Even this question now seems settled in favor of the latter (Bruss 2005: 117–119; Tueller 2008: 58–59; Bruss 2010: 121–122). Michael Tueller (2008: 61) connected Perses’ pioneering role to his unremarkableness: “he was careful to use recognizable patterns, so that his readers could imagine a stone where there was none.”

Did the massive inequalities in wealth and political capital lead to a system of patronage in classical Athens? This question has vexed scholars for many years. Although there seems to be general agreement on the definition of patronage proposed by Saller and tweaked by Millett, Millett’s argument for the “avoidance” of patronage has been hotly debated (Arnaoutoglou; Finley 1983*; Gallant; Jones; Mossé; Zelnick-Abramovitz).

The fragments explicitly attributed to Aeschylus’ Σεμέλη ἢ Ὑδροφόροι are four in total (221-224 Radt), all from scholiastic or lexicographical sources. Their aid in reconstructing the plot is minimal. More helpful is a scholion to Apollonius of Rhodes (1.636a Wendel) according to which Aeschylus showed on stage a pregnant and possessed Semele and a group of females (surely the chorus) also became possessed when they touched her; this notice probably refers to the Semele (Schütz).